Is Another Clinton Presidency Inevitable?

Hillary Clinton has been in the news a great deal lately, partly because of the launch of her new book, Hard Choices, and the obligatory book tour, but not all of the coverage is favorable. The Wall Street Journal reports that there have been some bumps in the road on the tour and that Clinton appears a little out of practice after a six-year sabbatical from the rough-and-tumble of national politics.

Clinton has “misspoken” a few times as well, particularly with her comments about being dead broke after leaving the White House in 2001. Yes, I understand that when your debts outweigh your assets, you are technically broke, but when you are able to get a loan for a 1.7 million dollar home in Chappaqua, NY, and manage to make $12 million that year, you are not really broke as most normal people understand the meaning of the word. In debt? Yes. Dead broke? Really? What do you take us for Ms. Clinton? And in an interview this week, when she was asked “If you had to name one book that made you who you are today, what would it be?” she replied, “At the risk of appearing predictable, the Bible was and remains the biggest influence on my thinking…I was raised reading it, memorizing passages from it and being guided by it.” I would not have predicted that answer.

A recently published book, Dan Emmett’s Within Arm’s Length, does not present a flattering picture of the former first lady, and implies that the Secret Service does not look forward to another four to eight years of the profanity-laced orders, lack of common courtesy, and even having books thrown at agents that they experienced in the first Clinton White House at the hands of the first lady. Was the Bible influencing you there, Ms. Clinton?

If that were not enough, she continues to have to fend off questions about Benghazi, even in venues one would think would be friendlier to the potential presidential candidate. In the same interview, Clinton was not able to name her top accomplishment as Secretary of State. Instead, during her discussion with Dianne Sawyer, she just changed the subject. This was not the first time she had that problem, apparently.

And, unfortunately for Ms. Clinton, her book tour is not helping her poll numbers which have dropped five percentage points since it began, according to Gallup. Breitbart points out that people tend to like Clinton less when “she enters the political arena, and her book tour is being run as a campaign.” Breitbart quotes Gallup, “Hillary Clinton’s era of higher favorability appears to be ending even before she announces whether she will run for president…Americans typically rate non-political figures higher than political ones on this measure, and her favorable ratings before, during, and after being secretary of state are consistent with that phenomenon.”

Will the Democrats insist on nominating Hillary Clinton if her poll numbers drop below fifty percent? This will be interesting to watch.